What Biscuits Should I Serve With Vin Santo Ice Cream?

Our answer

Nigella's Vin Santo Ice Cream With Cantuccini (from NIGELLA SUMMER) is a rich ice cream flavoured with the Italian dessert wine vin santo. The wine adds flavour to the ice cream but also the alcohol in the wine helps to prevent the ice cream from freezing solid, giving the ice cream a smooth, slightly softer texture.

Cantuccini biscuits are served alongside to dip into the ice cream. They are crunchy biscuits studded with almonds and are twice baked, like biscotti. Cantuccini are smaller versions of canttuci and cantucci themselves are almond biscotti that are asociated with Tuscany (Prato, though the original recipe is called "Biscotti of Genoa"). So the main difference is that cantuccini are always made with almonds but biscotti can be made with other ingredients. If you can't find cantuccini then another biscotti should be fine, though we would try to find one with almonds or other nuts, such as hazelnuts, and avoid using biscotti that have too much other flavouring.